CRAMBA-IMBA Bike Patrol: 1065 Hours in 2013

This past year has been a huge success for the Clinton River Area Mountain Bike Association’s National Mountain Bike Patrol (NMBP) group. The CRAMBA-IMBA Mountain Bike Patrol is a nationally recognized group of volunteers that help when help is needed out on the trails, or anywhere for that matter. This includes helping others with minor trailside repairs, directing lost or uncertain trail users, being good trail stewards, assisting in medical emergencies and anything else that may occur out while riding that may need some assistance.

This year was a huge success due to the focus on getting more organized and recruiting more volunteers. In doing so, CRAMBA-IMBA’s Mountain Bike Patrol had 13 patrollers go through training and commit to patrolling our local trails. All of the volunteers went through an orientation and first aid and CPR training.

CRAMBA Bike Patrol has had a great deal of support from a variety of different sources. The First Aid/CPR training was paid by Joe Burns (Race Director for Back to the Beach Half Marathon @ Stony Creek Metro Park). Mr. Burns was also gracious enough to donate another lump sum of cash ($200) to help pay for trailside repair kits for new patrollers. American Cycle and Fitness (Macomb) helped by discounting those trailside repair kits and spare bike tubes. REI (Troy) donated first aid kits for each patroller, which total value was more than $600. CRAMBA-IMBA also allocated a portion of its funding to the Bike Patrol. The group is very appreciative of the donations from these businesses and groups since training and tools are important for helping trail users.

Patrollers throughout the state of Michigan gained 1367.68 hours of volunteer time while out riding this year. CRAMBA’s Mountain Bike Patrol group was responsible for 1065.25 of those hours. Combined, volunteers have ridden 2506 miles while patrolling. Patrollers can patrol anywhere at any time. Local trails that are commonly patrolled by our members are the local mountain bike trails in Macomb and Oakland Counties, such as Stony Creek Metro Park, Addison Oaks, River Bends, Clinton River Trail, and Bloomer Park. Our patrolling efforts also focus on helping with bike races, foot races and group rides such as CRAMBA-IMBA’s Massive Fallout group ride that is held in fall of each year. The effort and dedication of our local group is obvious, and we are just starting to grow.

The group is planning for training in the spring of 2014 to add to our wonderful group of volunteers. For information about requirements and basic program overview, please go to CRAMBA-IMBA’s Mountain Bike Patrol page. If you are interested in joining or have any questions, please send an email to bikepatrol@cramba.org. This is a great opportunity for you if like to ride and like to help others.